


London, Autumn 2003

by glim



Category: Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Genre: Character Study, Drabble Sequence, Established Relationship, F/M, London, Post-Chosen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-16
Updated: 2015-07-16
Packaged: 2018-04-09 16:11:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,013
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4355621
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/glim/pseuds/glim
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <em>Giles likes finding answers.</em>
</p>
            </blockquote>





	London, Autumn 2003

**Author's Note:**

> Written for Summer of Giles 2015.

**London, Autumn 2003**

_i._

The England that Giles returns to after the destruction of the Sunnydale Hellmouth so resembles the one of his youth that the similarities are uncanny. The buses run, the shops open. the post arrives, and the bills still need paying. But in the pauses between words and breaths, and in the spaces between busy streets and warm houses, fear and uncertainty lurk. The question that remains unasked, and perforce, unanswered is one that creeps along the edges of a people's consciousness: a desperate desire to know whether or not they are safe.

He feels he ought to have the answer.

 

_ii._

"So far today it's been sunny, rainy, rainy and windy, and then cloudy. But now it might be sunny. Sunny-ish. And it's only eleven in the morning." Buffy kicks off her shoes and leans against the countertop, waits for Giles to hand her tea. "Is everyday like this?"

"Of course not. There's... well. Usually it's a bit sunny and--well, most days, I suppose yes," he adds when she peers at him over the edge of her mug. 

Buffy's eyes narrow, then brighten with a smile as she shakes her head; the gesture offhand, yet familiar. "At least it's predictable."

 

_iii._

Sometimes she spends the night at his flat, curled up and comfortable on the sofa, her feet in his lap as they watch evening television together. If he opens a bottle of wine, she'll drink it with him, and Giles learns how easy it is to watch the hours unfurl between them, quiet and companionable. She goes to bed before him, but not to sleep.

Hours to days, and days to weeks and months and years, and there will always be the evenings when Buffy has dinner with Giles and spends the night without either of them posing the question. 

 

_iv._

London is not like Sunnydale. The magic inherent in the city is no older than that in Sunnydale, and the demons that live there are no more ancient than those that chose a Hellmouth halfway across the world. 

Yet London is a city of layers, of disguised histories. The denial that exists there is buried beneath the London of the Civil Wars, of the Peasants' Revolt, of the earliest settlements on the banks of the Thames. 

London is not like Sunnydale, but fear that slips between your breaths, that catches you on an empty street is one they now share. 

 

_v._

The first time they slept together was in a small hotel room, twenty-six hours outside of California in a place just as hot and dry as the last place they had stopped. The drive to somewhere worth staying had felt endless and Giles had known, even then, that the only place he could go from there was home. 

"I'm going with you," Buffy had said. She sat cross-legged on the bed, her hair shower damp, the faint scent of soap on her skin as she moved closer to clasp her fingers around his wrist. 

Giles only had said, "I'm glad."

 

_vi._

"There's the underground," Buffy says, spreading the tube map on Giles's kitchen table. "Then the under-underground: vampires and demons that aren't averse to a little human socialization."

"And beneath that?"

"Yeah. Beneath _that_. All the things nobody wants to ask about."

"But we need to." Giles smoothes the map and traces the path from the center to the edge of the paper. "I hardly think it ends where this map ends."

Buffy shrugs. "So we find a better map. Or make a better map."

"There are a lot of questions that need to be asked before we can do that."

 

_vii._

She does not redraw the map, neither the city map, nor the underground map, not the hybrid that exists when once is placed beneath the other. 

What she does is learn the map, and she learns it by walking it, by memorizing the steps between underground stops and fear-dark corners, by learning how many breaths there are between a place that exists on the surface and the hidden space that exists beneath it. 

Buffy slips into those spaces easily, quick-witted and bright, sparked by her desire to not only understand the unasked questions, but to leave them unasked, unneeded, unilluminated. 

 

_viii._

He loves for that: her intense need to dispel darkness and to banish all wordless fear along with it until it is buried beneath the city, not forgotten but unknown. 

The urge is one he recognizes. Giles has done the same, taken knowledge that he deemed too dark, too complex, too ancient for anyone to fully comprehend, and kept it close to his own heart. There is safety in this sort of disguise; cities and lives can be built up over and around it.

London is not Sunnydale, and Giles not Buffy, but in this desire they are the same. 

 

_ix._

He loves her for this, too: the way her hands and lips open beneath his touch, the way her mouth whispers wordless affections against his, and the way she smiles when she sees him.

"Let's have lunch together today. I'll find someplace small. Or not small?" Buffy adds when Giles laughs. 

"It doesn't matter. There are a few places by the museum, but--you should choose."

"You're just dedicated to being unhelpful," she says, smiling, and pushes her windblown hair off her face. 

They linger for a moment on the pavement, then walk to the tube station nearest Giles's flat. 

 

_x._

Giles likes finding answers. He likes the process of formulating the right questions, the ones that will lead to more questions, and then to answers that will inspire another line of inquiry. He likes the intricacies of history, the legibility of maps placed one atop the other, and how they, too, offer questions and answers.

He would take apart London, uncover its true history from the first days up through the present, categorize the questions of its tragedies and refine what might be the answers. 

England has changed, however, and so has he, and yesterday's questions cannot be answered today.


End file.
